State Sees Big Bill To Clean Up Waters, But No Funding In Sight

Blue green algae blooms on Lake Champlain were especially bad last summer, and led to this fish kill on Missisquoi Bay.

The Shumlin administration
says that cleaning up Lake
Champlain and other waterways
will cost $156 million a year in additional funding.

But the governor in his budget
address did not mention the pollution problem - or suggest a possible funding
solution.

A few hours before Gov. Peter
Shumlin outlined his spending priorities, other state officials were testifying
about how to address the state's chronic water pollution issues.

"It's clear that our existing
state regulatory program, our state system of public education and outreach and
technical assistance are struggling to keep up with the scope of the problem,"
said David Mears, the state's commissioner of environmental conservation.

Mears and other state
officials say the problem is too much nutrient pollution from stormwater, farms
and other sources that flows off the land and into the water.

VPR/John Dillon

Blue green algae blooms on Lake Champlain were especially bad last summer, and led to this fish kill on Missisquoi Bay.

Last summer, the phosphorus pollution
triggered toxic algae blooms that spread over many areas of Lake Champlain. Beaches were closed. And in late August, a massive
fish kill turned Missisquoi Bay into a reeking dead zone.

Even before last summer's
pollution issues, the Legislature asked the administration to lay out options
to clean up Champlain and other waterways.

Officials came back with
detailed plans and a cost estimate: $156 million a year to fund new pollution
control efforts.

But the governor's budget
includes no new funding for water programs. Environmental Commissioner Mears,
in his briefing, tried to turn lawmakers' expectations away from any new
dollars.

"The solutions are not just
about funding. The solutions are about changing behavior, they're about
implementing new technologies," he said. "There are lots of ways in which we
can as a state make significant progress without spending huge sums of public
money."

But environmental groups and
some lawmakers were disappointed that water issues did not rank on the
governor's list of spending priorities.

"A drive-by wave to the
importance of clean water would have been nice," said Rep. David Deen, a
Westminister Democrat who chairs the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources
Committee.

Deen said the administration
is open to re-directing existing programs to target water clean up. He said his
committee will look at additional sources of revenue, such as fees on
stormwater pollution.

"I am disappointed that clean
water didn't make the top four priorities, given the importance that Vermonters
place on clean water," he said.

"But I think we can deal with
it and I think going forward we'll still be able to at least make a down
payment on cleaning up the waters of the state."

Christopher Kilian heads the Vermont office of the Conservation Law Foundation. He said
the administration's spending priorities are shortsighted.

"If we say to farmers and
developers and municipalities you can dump your phosphorus in Lake Champlain - that may be saving them a buck in the short term
but it's driving away the core tourism industry dollars that are really the
backbone of our economy," he said.

Kilian and other environmentalists said the state also has a legal
responsibility to help clean up the waters.